Two sister cities seek economic revitalization after the fall of industry, and in their cultural exchange, Detroit offers Saint-Etienne the wonders of funk, Afrofuturism, and a redefined "new normal." Not included in either proposal: bringing back coal. Read about it at Architectural Record.

I heard some Brazilians referring to Dilma Rousseff's removal an impeachment, and others, a coup d'etat. This scene from Jonathas de Andrade's "O Peixe," 2016, sums up my feelings about the the beautiful, moving, and politically potent 32nd São Paulo Bienal. Read my dispatch at Wallpaper*.

Did I love Manifesta 11 or hate it? Both. I cannot tell. BTW Christian Jankowski did give me the best unpublished quote ever on how French iconoclast Michel Houellebecq's collaboration with a local Zurich doctor was like that alien-astronaut encounter from Solaris.

"We have this introduction from that old Andrey Tarkovskiy movie. In the spaceship, there's an alien who meets an astronaut and they both float in the spaceship together, and they're both familiar and unfamiliar. I see somethig like this there, too. Sometimes Michel makes a very long pause, and you wonder, is it because my question is so stupid? Is he making a pause because he's thinking? I still don't know, but it's every human's right to be irritating." Read the rest at Artinfo.